


They Beat Their Wings Against The Bars.

by whymylife (nabringa)



Series: Caged Robins [2]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dana is still trying, Detective Tim Drake, Dysfunctional Family, Dysfunctional Relationships, Gen, Ives and Conner show up briefly, Jack Drake's A+ parenting, Jack doesn't like it, POV Outsider, Scars, Tim Drake is Robin, Tim Drake-centric, Tim is being rebellious, Tim isn't giving up Robin that easily, Vigilantism, but also doesn't know what to do about it, of a sort, of a sort?, support tim drake
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:07:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28017456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nabringa/pseuds/whymylife
Summary: The way Tim said ‘civilian’ left Jack feeling distinctly unsettled for the rest of the weekend. The way his son said ‘civilian’ like he wasn’t one.
Relationships: Jack Drake & Tim Drake
Series: Caged Robins [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2052132
Comments: 25
Kudos: 346





	They Beat Their Wings Against The Bars.

**Author's Note:**

> Picks up immediately after Caged Robins.

Tim’s phone started buzzing during an after dinner movie. Something shifted in Tim’s face when he checked the number, and he got up quickly and left the room. 

After Tim had been gone for a few minutes, Dana looked over at Jack with a questioning eyebrow raised. Jack just shrugged. Tim had friends at school. At least, Jack was pretty sure he did. It wasn’t unusual for Tim to be on his phone texting. Some kid named Ives had been over last Saturday to hang out, and Tim just rolled his eyes when Jack asked suspiciously if Ives was involved with any of that Bat nonsense. Ives was ‘just a civilian’, apparently. 

The way Tim said ‘civilian’ left Jack feeling distinctly unsettled for the rest of the weekend. The way his son said ‘civilian’ like he wasn’t one. 

Turning his attention back to the movie, Jack tried to ignore the feeling that this phone call was different. Tried to forget the urgency in Tim’s expression once he recognized the number, and the way he squared his shoulders as he stood. 

Jack didn’t quite manage. 

***

After Tim had been safely home for a few months and the family had settled into a straightforward routine, Dana asked Tim about his healthcare provider. Apparently kids needed to go to the doctor and dentist and whatnot every six months or so. Jack felt stupid for not realizing that kids needed to got to the doctor regularly, and not just when they were actually sick. He figured Janet had taken care of all that, before. 

Without batting an eyelash, Tim said that his scars made going to a regular doctor dangerous, so two years ago he’d switched his pediatrician from a Dr. Williams at Gotham Childrens to a Dr. Thompkins at the Thomas Wayne Memorial Clinic. 

Two years ago. His son wasn’t sixteen yet, and two years ago he had switched doctors to keep his identity as a vigilante secret because of his extensive scarring. 

Jack took a deep breath. Dana asked when Tim’s next appointment was. 

***

Tim was on the phone again. Back straight, free hand running over the spines of the Encyclopedia Britannica collection on the shelf in front of him, chewing at his bottom lip as he listened intently to whoever was on the other end of the call. Jack waited in the doorway of the library to be acknowledged. He knew Tim knew he was there. Past experience had proven This Tim could not be snuck up on. This Tim knew the location of everyone in the house at all times. But there was something intense about Tim when he was taking one of these calls, and Jack was loath to interrupt. 

Out of fear or respect, he wasn’t sure. Wasn’t sure if he wanted to think too deeply about it, either.

After another minute of being silently ignored by his son in favor of a phone call, Jack stomped off down the hall and told himself that all teenagers were rude and rebellious. Tim wasn’t special in that respect. 

Jack was pretty sure, at least. 

***

Driving Tim to Wayne Memorial-- even thinking that damn name made Jack’s jaw tense-- was it’s own kind of torture. 

Jack hated driving through Crime Alley, hated even going near that side of town. It was filthy and run down and, as its name suggested, crime ridden. 

Why Batman’s private doctor ran a clinic on this side of town in her spare time, Jack would never understand. Surely Bruce Wayne of all people could afford better healthcare providers, not to mention the cost of their secrecy. Maybe it had something to do with the ‘Wayne’ in the clinic’s name. Probably. 

Pulling up to the clinic, Jack parked and released a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. Unbuckling his seatbelt, he reached to open the door only to be stopped by a hand on his arm. 

Tim shook his head once, exited the car, and walked confidently through the deserted parking lot and into Wayne Memorial without a word. 

Jack locked the doors and hunkered down to wait. 

***

There was whispering coming from Tim’s room. 

Jack crept down the hall, silent as he knew how to be, shuffling forward inch by inch in socked feet.

The noise stopped abruptly when he was within five feet of Tim’s door. Speeding up, Jack burst through the door and into the room, revealing--

Tim. Just Tim, sitting on his bed and reading a book. The window was cracked open slightly, allowing a breeze to rustle the curtains. 

Tim glanced up from his book, brow creased, face as innocent as could be. But. Jack could see through it, now. Could see whatever darkness lurked in the depths of his son’s eyes behind a smile or a frown. The frost climbing behind the masks he wore that said ‘danger’ and ‘threat’ and ‘don’t engage’. 

Jack backed out of the room and shut the door carefully behind him. 

***

There were notebooks and printed articles and stacks of books scattered across a table in the library, and Tim was on the phone again. 

He was typing on a laptop lighting fast with one hand while holding his phone to his ear with the other. He didn’t seem to be focused on either activity, instead staring intently at a spot on the wallpaper and nodding his head distractedly. 

Jack took a step into the library. Tim’s attention snapped to him immediately, and Jack flinched. The corner of Tim’s mouth twitched up momentarily, before he smoothed his face into a blank mask again, tilting his head briefly in Jack’s direction in acknowledgement. Turing back to the wall, Tim cleared his throat to get the attention of whoever was on the other end of the call. Picking up a sloppily written list from where it rested by his elbow, he rattled off names and locations into the phone without pausing his typing. Without stopping to ask why Jack was there, or if he wanted something. Or even bothering to say a proper hello. 

Jack could feel himself getting angry, feel the tension building in his shoulders and the heat coiling in his gut. What gave this brat the right to ignore his own father? Kids were supposed to want to spend time with their parents, right? So why did his kid spend all his time on the phone, acting high and mighty and--

Tim turned slowly and met Jack’s gaze, and the ice lurking beneath his mask said ‘I’m not afraid of you’. 

Jack turned and left. 

***

Tim was either in the library or on the phone or both these days. He read the morning paper and watched the evening news and when asked what he was reading on his phone usually answered with the name of a news source. Sure, he went to school and ate dinner with his parents and watched the occasional movie. But. He never sought out Jack to spend time with him, or joined any after school clubs, or spent weekends with his ‘civilian’ friends. 

A project, Tim said. He was working on a project. 

He didn’t specify if it was for school. 

***

Dana was laughing. A sweet, pure laugh that Jack worked hard to draw out of her, a laugh that he knew made her face glow and her eyes sparkle. Jack followed the sound to the den. 

Sitting across from Tim over a chess board, Dana was laughing like she had only laughed for Jack, golden and good and joyful. 

A glimmer of a smile danced on Tim’s lips, and his eyes were bright and clear. He looked up at Jack and smiled wide, real and happy and warm for once. 

Jack scowled and walked back to his office. 

***

The kettle was boiling when Jack made his way downstairs one Saturday morning. Tim was making black tea with honey on the counter, dressed in exercise clothes. Jack let his eyes glaze over when they landed on the stripes and puckers across Tim’s arms, turning towards the coffee machine. 

The kitchen table was covered in blueprints and loose paper. Three separate mugs of tea in various stages of consumption were strewn about. A computer and a phone had been disassembled and reassembled into some Frankenstein-esque electronic monstrosity in the middle of the mess, spare parts carefully set aside. 

Tim finished making his tea and sat down at the table, pulling a piece of paper towards him and picking up a pencil to continue… sketching? Sketching. Tim was drawing up a diagram of whatever it was he had built, carefully labeling each component and measuring out correct proportions. 

He glanced up at Jack once, and then went back to his paper.

Jack finished getting his coffee and carried it back upstairs. Instead of going back to his room where he could hear Dana just beginning to stir, Jack stepped into his office. 

What had Tim done, exactly, when he worked for that damned Bat? What had he learned and how had he used it? 

Sipping his coffee, Jack spent the morning doing research, looking up every sighting and every photo and every article of every incident Robin had been involved in. Jack’s previous knowledge of Batman and Robin-- all superheroes and vigilantes, really-- had come primarily from local news and the occasional battle big enough to make national or international news. He’d never been interested before, brushing off superheroes and vigilantes alike as unnecessary at best and a menace at worst. The police force and the military existed for a reason, after all. 

Tim had been interested. 

A memory came back to Jack suddenly, of ten-year-old Tim sitting in the corner of his old office, cutting an article on Batman and Robin out of the morning newspaper as he waited for his father to finish something at his desk. 

Maybe that was a sign. Maybe Jack should have taken that early interest as a warning, instead of brushing it off as a childish hobby. 

Too late now. 

Tim would never tell his stories, because Jack would never ask. But that didn’t mean Jack couldn’t do a little digging now that he knew what he wanted to know. 

Tim--

No. Robin. 

The new Robin-- the third Robin-- had appeared on the scene almost three years ago. Tim would have been thirteen. 

Batman and his new partner hit the streets like a hurricane. Robin was credited with solving two cold cases within a month of his debut, hacking into police servers and leaving the evidence and data on the Commissioner's personal computer. Victims of a trafficking ring reported that Robin was the one who had freed them and gotten them to safety while Batman dealt with the thugs holding them captive. A suicide prevention website had a special page dedicated to collecting thank-yous from jumpers who had been talked down by Batman, Nightwing, and Robin. 

Batman and Robin had taken down muggers and rapists and violent drunks nightly. They had forced the Falcone family and the Maroni family and Roman Sionis back and back and back until their territories were a third of the size they used to be and every move they made was under scrutiny by the police. They had gone toe to toe with monsters and men and fought side by side with gods and heroes. 

Robin had led Young Justice for more than a year.

There were photos online of Young Justice. Of Robin. Of Robin mid-battle, the overwhelming intensity Jack had come to recognize evident in every fluid line of his body, in the way he squared his shoulders and set his jaw and bared his teeth. Photos of Robin in the aftermath, standing in the ruins of cities covered in dust and blood and holding his staff loose in one hand, relief and pride evident on his face even under the mask. Photos of the entire Young Justice team standing tall together, Superboy’s arm slung casually around Robin’s shoulder and Wonder Girl leaning against his side, sunshine smiles aimed at reporter’s cameras. 

There were forums and news columns and websites dedicated to Batman, to vigilantes and superheroes, to Young Justice. To Robin. To his son, Tim, and the work he’d done at night, wrapped in shadows and secrets. To the work he’d done for Gotham, and for the world. To the work he would have continued doing until he went missing or died like the two Robins before him, like people in his line of work inevitably did. 

The work he would still be doing if Jack hadn’t uncovered his secrets and shone light on his shadows and forced him back into a 'civilian' life that hadn’t been his for years. 

Jack closed the open tabs, shut down the computer, and carried his empty mug into the kitchen to help Dana with lunch. 

***

Robin had been working on filling out some kind of notebook for the past week. Jack avoided him. Robin made no effort to reach out. Dana tried to bring them together for meals and activities, but eventually gave up and let everyone scatter to their own corners of the house. 

Every evening around seven o’clock Robin put down his notebook and played chess with Dana, and Jack tried to go out walking so he wouldn’t have to hear their laughter echo through his house. Sometimes he stayed out until eight or nine, arriving back in the dark to a deserted family area and lights shining from underneath bedroom doors. 

One night he arrived back just in time to see a boy climb out of Robin’s window and fly away. 

Not swing on a grapple line or jump to the next house over. Fly. Straight up into the clouds, like Peter Pan. 

Like Superboy. 

Jack walked into his house, closed the door, hung up his coat. He paused outside of Robin’s room, clenched his fist, raised his hand to knock-- and forced himself to relax and lower his hand. 

Jack walked to his room and went to bed. 

***

Robin didn’t have his notebook the next morning. Instead, he had a manila folder stuffed with loose paper. He said he’d finished his old project and moved on to a new one. 

Jack nodded, and said nothing. 

***

Tim wasn’t his son, not really. Tim was Robin. There was no changing it, no going back to the way things were. The way things were had just been an illusion anyway. One of Robin’s many masks. 

The lies and sneaking around and attitude of superiority weren’t going to end just because Jack demanded that they do. They were too much a part of Robin. 

He’d thought the cage he’d built for his grounded bird was made of blood and bone, family bonds strong enough to pin it and hold it still in submission. Thought no matter how hard Robin beat his naked wings, the bars would never shatter. 

The bars were formed of ice and shadow and broken promises, and the fallen shards had been cutting Jack’s feet for months.

**Author's Note:**

> Guess who started another series... (marking as complete for now but, honestly, who knows???)
> 
> So. I kinda hate that Tim was just like 'fine Dad I'll stop being Robin to make you happy'. Like. It's very in character, I understand why he's still chasing after his parent's approval, but at the same time you can't give up that kind of life just like that. It's too much a part of him. He got right back in as soon as he had his parent's permission, and I think if he had been a little older, a little closer to eighteen, he would never have given it up in the first place. Anyway. Sorry for rambling! Thanks for reading!


End file.
